SEASONS - MARTHA CHANGES BACK TO MARY

The time has arrived for The Feast of Tabernacles!

On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Sukkot, seven days for the LORD (Leviticus 23:34)

I LOVE Sukkot!!!!!  THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES!!!!! 

This year I am feeling so blessed to be spending the time with my family at the beach.  The anticipation is escalating every day as the feast time approaches.  I've caught myself thinking of how great it has worked out to have a place provided by a family member that is large enough for all ten of our minion!  Eight days with our grown kids and grandchildren in a lazy, fun atmosphere that gives honor to our Creator!  I'm so excited.  

It is a sweet, sweet time before the Lord that I treasure every year.  It doesn't always work out this easy and we have not always had a place to stay together and we can't always get everyone together under one roof every year, but that just adds to my joy of this particular year, to know it has all come together.  I've had different types of blessings on other years.  Of course, we can’t be in Jerusalem this year, and we are not a members of a Jewish congregation that understands the joy of this celebration, but we are a family full of  born again, believing Christians who have come to understand the great significance of The Feast of Tabernacles, and celebrating this time before the Lord is always a big HUGE thing in the year. 

Below are some notes of my celebration from the year 2012, two contrasting situations, but still, two great blessings!  God is good all the time.

NOTES FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES DAYS OF 2012

This season I’ve have to literally claw my way through the trappings of the world in order to get to God’s way of celebration.   It should be easy, not hard, but it hasn’t happened that way this year. Arriving in the proper place has not been at all easy.  At least one thousand things have happened to distract me and try to prevent me from the joy of the feast.

I have dreamed all year of gathering the whole family together into a little mountain resort town, worshiping together every day, and celebrating the joy of The Lord together all during the feast week.  How nice it would be to just spend family time and relax together in the evenings.  Things gradually one by one fell apart for this plan.  Everyone has some other plans; work was busy for some; money was tight for some; people were too scattered; etc., etc. 

Well, yes, that was MY perfect plan, but alas, God has allowed a situation where I have unexpectedly had to forfeit MY plan for something much simpler. 

My first prayer was one of frustration.  Nothing should stop the joy of the feast, so I just begin to passionately hold that up to God.  He answers me that I am absolutely right.  Hmmmm…..seems to be a strange answer under the circumstance, so I say "but Lord; my budget will not allow a trip with the family this time.  I’ve done everything that I can, but it just isn’t happening."  

“Yes, I know” is what I hear back. 

But Lord, why has it worked out this way? 
And the answer is the most surprising thing, but I do hear it:

“Because I have called you to be content in all circumstances.”

I suddenly remembered the verse I long ago chose for my life verse; Philippians 4:11-13.

The words screamed out to me:   Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.


I had no idea that keeping this wonderful time I've previously kept with such ease was going to be so hard and complicated this year.  You know what?  Sometimes God REALLY calls on you to live out those life verses. 

Now, that word  “contentment” isn’t exactly what pops into my mind when I think of celebrating a week-long festival before the Lord.  I envision feasting, dancing, singing in crowds of joyful people with great fanfare. 

So finally I gather my courage and  I ask The Lord what HE has planned for me this week, knowing that asking HIM was the very first thing I should have considered all along.  He says back to me those hard to digest words I often hear:

“I will show you.  Trust me.”

I am sure it is wrong to complain, but those words didn’t give me much direction.  Next thing I know, my work calls to tell me they have a great need for me to be in the office on Monday and they want me to postpone my vacation time I’ve set aside for at least one day, maybe more.  I had been trying to regroup and at least make a not so extravagant plan for something special to do at home with the family during this feast, but now I can’t even get the first day off from work, and will possibly even have more time than that tied up at work.   

It seems that,The Ox is in the ditch. 

Some people would say it is a sin for me to go on to work, and I should just take the time off anyway.   I have to confess to these zealots that I am living in grace because I have for awhile been in a bondage that I created for myself – I have a mortgage and need my job in order to pay my bills.  We all were going through through tough financial times in the business world during 2012.  If you were employed you were one of the blessed, and you should not take that for granted in today’s economy either!    My heart was still hurting for those that I worked with that had been "let go" for no fault of their own.  I do have to remember that  God says we should be responsible stewards.  I must keep my word and pay my bills.  I need my job, and have actually had on my mind that maybe I no longer need the mortgage; but God will had to led me through that decision and process over time.  I couldn't change anything overnight.   It was something out of my control.  

There I stood in the midst of turning one way and the other until I finally just ended up saying:

 “Okay, Lord, I trust You.” 

After these words, while I’m looking out my bedroom window  still feeling a bit sorry for myself, I catch myself thinking sadly that I haven’t even built a sukkah!  I feel like a failure before God actually, not living up to my own testimony about keeping God’s feast and festivals.  It isn't a good feeling.  I know in my heart He wants us to keep them!   Then, almost as if someone was standing behind me and tapping me on the shoulder, God reminds me that my back deck is a three sided structure that you can see the stars through.

Hmmm……………

He has provided what I was not prepared for.  I think of this simple little miracle, a hidden blessing that My Father just points out to me, and my heart becomes happier.  I go about planning a festive outdoor dinner to be eaten on the deck for that night.   We may not be starting the feast in a fancy place, but our home is a GOOD place.  The view from our deck will be great!  There will be lots of stars shining through the shelter.  This is great!

I consider the food.  My planning has been bad.  My budget has been so tight that the menu will probably need to be very limited.  This is not how God wants us to feast.  I feel ashamed of my own poor planning.  I look in my pantry and find some great selections that I had just overlooked before.

God always provides what we need.  

How long will it take for me to always remember this and never doubt.  Even when I plan amiss, He blesses me anyway.  True grace.  I had the physical things all along without even realizing they were there.   

Now I just had to bring my mind and my spirit to the right place.  

That was the thing most needed.  I confessed my sins of worry and anxiety to God.  I felt His forgiveness flood over me.  I thanked God for his awesome provision, and asked Him to keep my eyes wide open to all the daily blessings He brings from now on.  I had everything that we needed right here under our own roof to offer a joyful feast of thanksgiving to God on the first night of the festival.  What more could a daughter ask from her Father?  I knew I was loved.  I felt the first spark of joy that belongs at the table of the King, and I welcomed it into my heart.

I thought of all the people of God throughout history who had to celebrate their feast days under truly hard circumstances.  I considered that I truly had no problems.  There were those who celebrated under  the rule of captivity.  I thought of those Jewish heroes that had to celebrate their feast days in concentration camps.  I remembered Corrie Ten Boom and her messages of how she found hope when there was no hope.  I thought of Joseph worshiping God in the pagan life he was forced to live in Egypt.  I began to see that my problems were all in my head.  It finally occurred to me that clearly my problems were very small and my God was very big.

I resolved that after work tomorrow, I can do the same again.  We could have our feast on our sukkah on the deck after dark and look up at the stars and thank The God of Heaven and Earth every night during this week. 

Suddenly I felt very rested and not at all stressed.    

Maybe I was just anxious for nothing? 

Once again, I apologized to God for being so stressed over the details.  I am usually such a “Mary,” always worshiping at The Master’s feet; but this week I have been caught acting and behaving just like a “Martha” getting all bogged down in the details and the work and so much so that I almost missed the whole point of setting aside the time to listen, worship, rest and just be thankful and joyful in  the Lord.  I rested in His provision. 

I  have been reminded this week that God simply wants me to sit at His feet and worship.  It doesn’t have to be elaborate, it can be as simple as a dinner on my back deck with my husband.  We will feast with the things that He has provided and offer thanksgiving prayers, ever grateful that we have food and shelter for this day, for this moment and for this season.   It is enough to bask in God’s presence right where we are, right in the moment that we are living in, in the temples of our bodies that He has given us and with our spirits that will never be destroyed or pass away. 

When the stars come out in the night sky, we will look up to see God’s story written in them. 

Is it not a great miracle? 

Is it not a wonderful thing just to sit after a full meal and look up at the night sky and be ever thankful that God is in control and we are not?  

The God who thinks way beyond anything that I could ever imagine reminded me that we own a telescope that is not even being used.  I had not thought of it in years.  I hurried out to the storage area to clean it up and place it next to our table on the deck.  Yes, we have everything that we need, and even more!

And so way back, even in the year of 2012 I was able to proclaim: Happy Feast of Tabernacles Everyone! I expect to do the same this year as our whole family gathers together at the beach.  

May you be able to see God’s blessing unfold before you as you worship and sit at His feet at your feast this year, no matter where or under any circumstances.  I pray that the world will not be able to keep you from all the good God has blessed you with.

May we all live in eager anticipation for the time when Messiah returns to set up His Kingdom and rule and reign, for a thousand years of peace on this earth.

He will graciously provide everything that we need, and it could just be that  the simple things are actually the richest things of all.

Right now, even before Rosh Hashanah comes, begin anticipating the feast times you will spend with God this year.  He is waiting with open arms in the places that He will put His name and call you, living and breathing and walking around inside his temples, to be!

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 85 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WRESTLE WITH GOD AND HE LETS YOU WIN

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

The place where the angels met Jacob and his family was near Harran.  After spending one night in the camp near Harran Jacob sent his caravan on across the Rabbok River. This included his wives, his sons, his servants and all of his many possessions.

The Zarqa River, as we now call it, is said to be about 30 million years old.  It is a tributary of The Jordan River, and it flows through the valley of Jordan.  This river is what Jacob knew to be the river Rabbok.  It leads west into the Sukkot Valley, from where one crosses over the Jordan and can easily reach Shechem.  This river later became the boundary separating the territories of Ruben and Gad from Ammon.  The Rabbok valley was an important passageway connecting the Eastern Desert with the Jordan Valley.

Present day Jordan is trying to restore the water quality of this river which has been heavily polluted by oil companies and other industrial endeavors.  The estimated cost to restore it is $30 million, and it seems a hopeless task.  In the days of Jacob though, the water was probably clean and useable.

He helped his family across the river and he waited on the other side.  Does anything about those words sound familiar?  I get a vivid vision of all those who have gone on to God’s eternal life before those of us who are left on this earth.  Jacob waited on the other side and did not cross the river  yet. 

So, Jacob was left alone and the scriptures tell us a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

What strange words!  Whatever does that mean?

We are not given the meaning of the “man” but we are told that the man could not overpower Jacob but he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that Jacob’s hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 

Who was this mysterious “man?”

Most have come to believe that the “man” was a Christophany, or the pre-incarnate form of Christ in the bodily form of a man. 

Could Jacob have wrestled with Christ and won? 

To know Jacobs story is to know of deep, deep struggles against huge odds.  That night as Jacob lay his head down to rest he was at the place of his largest struggle ever, that of facing his brother Esau.  He had actually reached a place of “in-between” struggles.  He was forced to leave his father-in-law because of the mistreatment he received from him, yet leaving made him have to face the brother who wished him dead. There were struggles any way Jacob turned.

In order to face his brother, he had divested himself of all he owned.  He sent his possessions and his family on ahead of him.  He is left alone, with nothing.

 

It is just Jacob and God at Peniel.  There will be a Peniel for all of us, a time when nothing that we own or no one that we know can help us.  Everything will be laid bare before God and we will have to give account for our own actions.  Whoever leaves Peniel either goes God’s way or continues in their own strength. 

 Jacob had conned his way out of every situation up until this point; but could he con God? 

He knew he could not.  

He had learned through all this time of struggling that eventually you had to face things honestly and straight on.  This was Jacob’s time to face God with who he really was.  It was a time  to receive forgiveness for his past mistakes, and convince God that he was worthy of another chance at being the person he was designed to be. 

Basically, at Peniel Jacob was going through the process that all devout Jews and a few Christians follow during the month of Elul that lead up to Rosh Hashanah.  He was reevaluating himself before God.  He was reconsidering where he had been, looking and learning from his past mistakes and begging for God’s mercy to try again.

These are the things that Jacob “wrestled” with at Peniel. 

Frederick Buechner said Jacob’s divine encounter at the Jabbok River symbolized the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.  Like Jacob all of mankind has struggled with fear, darkness, loneliness and vulnerability.  At some point we all experience empty feelings of powerlessness and exhaustion and relentless pain.  There is only one thing that will change it, and that is the blessings of God.  

In order to get through to God for His greatest blessings, we all must have our wrestling encounters with Jesus Christ.  If He needs to, Christ will inflict pain in order to save our souls from eternal damnation.  Whatever it takes to save us, that is just what Jesus has in mind.  That is exactly what happened to Jacob.

God could not forgive Jacob and have mercy on him because he had been basically unrighteous in his deeds.  There was one hope though, the atonement of the blood of Jesus.  God would never deny that sacrifice.  This Angel of The Lord that wrestled with Jacob was Jesus before the cross.  God would grant Jesus the power and ability to negotiate with Him for the souls of mankind.  Jacob had to prevail with Christ in order to keep his place in the family.  God loved Jacob.  He came, through Christ, in Jacob’s place in order to live the life that Jacob could not live.  Jacob’s place, my place, your place, none of us measured up.  We all have been wrestling and we all have our broken hips to prove it.

It must have been a tough struggle, because at one point “the man” almost left without giving Jacob a blessing.  It seems that He needed Jacob to acknowledge that He was the only One who had the power to bless him.  Jacob was pretty stubborn, and so are we; but Jacob did finally have the good sense to admit this. By asking for the blessing, Jacob acknowledged his inferiority and Christ's supremacy over him.

The man noticing it was daybreak told Jacob to let him go, but Jacob held on to him and said he would not let him go until he blessed him.

The best advice I could ever give you is to hold on to Jesus until He convinces God to bless you.  It was through wrestling with Christ that Jacob came to see God face to face.  That was the greatest blessing of all blessings!  Jacob saw the face of God and lived to tell about it.  It  could have only happened through Christ who came to this guilty man in the form of humanity and brought him to a place where God would agree to face him yet have mercy on his soul.  Christ did this for Jacob, and He did it for us. 

Jacob had finally wised up.  He knew that God’s will was more powerful and better than his own will.  He had an injured hip to remind him of that for the rest of his life.  

We all need reminders.  What is the broken hip in your life?  I have many injuries, each one of them have taught me and led me to a place of God’s will and purpose for my days.  Without the scars I would not be able to see the stars.  I’m thankful for the broken hips.

The man asked Jacob’s name and he told him.

Then the man said “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.

Therein friends lies the secret to eternal blessings, to struggle with God and humans and to OVERCOME.  Many think this implies that Jacob overcame the strength of Christ in the wrestling; but that is not so.  I take this to mean that by wrestling with Christ, Jacob overcame the problems he had within him that came from sin and his own ways.  He did this by surrendering to God.  In overcoming, Jacob surrendered to Christ and to God’s way of life totally and completely.  He had already started this process as he worked for Laban, but at Peniel, Jacob surrendered all.  By asking for the blessing he gave God total authority over his life.  If he had not met Christ and wrestled with Him at Peniel, this might not have ever happened. 

Revelations 3:21 speaks of a type of Jacob’s victory in this battle: “to the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

We can expect to see Jacob with a changed name sitting on a throne in the Kingdom of God.  He will be called Israel.  Under his new name he will represent the House of David before God.

Just as Jacob had faced his troubles in the world and was in the process of bringing the house of Abraham home, Christ too has faced the sin of all nations and is in the process of bringing all of us who follow him into the Kingdom of God.  We know this from the words of John 16:33:  These things I have spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace.   In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Jacob had overcome his fears and faced God at Peniel.  He was being strengthened and prepared to meet his worst enemy, and to come out of it victorious.  At Peniel God assured Jacob of who he really was, and  reminded him of the covenant of God that covered him. 

Jacob then said to the man who wrestled with him “Please tell me your name.”But the man replied “Why do you ask my name?”  Here we are reminded of that passage in John 14:9 from a later time where Christ speaks to Philip and says:  “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?  Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father.”

Christ has appeared to Abraham and his people over and over in the form of The Angel of The Lord.  He had appeared to Jacob at Bethel.  He had appeared to him in his pastures as he was tending sheep in a dream back in the land of Laban.  Jacob should have recognized The Angel of The Lord, and by seeing him, face to face, Jacob had looked into the face of God, because Jesus said if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father.  The two are One.  Jacob should have recognized Christ as The Angel of The Lord.  This is why he did not tell him his name. 

And after that “the man” “The Angel of The Lord” “Christ Incarnate” “God Himself” blessed Jacob.

And Jacob called the place Peniel because it was there he saw God face to face, yet his life was spared.  When Jacob realized that he had wrestled with Christ, he also knew that he had only been allowed to win the wrestling match.  After wrestling with all his strength all night, the Angel Of The Lord simply touched the place on his hip and it was permanently injured.  Jacob had thought he was winning on his own strength, but after that moment, he knew for sure that nothing good ever happened to him unless it was allowed by God.   This was a continuous lesson that played out over and over again in Jacob's life. 

When the sun was high in the sky Jacob passed out of Peniel and he was limping because of his hip.

To this day the Jewish people do not eat the meat that is the tendon that attaches to the socket of the hip, because that was where the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched.